


Stopwatch Hearts

by Clarice Chiara Sorcha (claricechiarasorcha)



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Competence Kink, First Time, Kylo Ren Has Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:36:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5926975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claricechiarasorcha/pseuds/Clarice%20Chiara%20Sorcha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The general is just doing his job. Kylo Ren isn't sure why that's so fascinating to him.</p>
<p>(It's because he's naked. Isn't it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stopwatch Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> I have to stop doing this.

The general might be on downtime, but certainly he was expected to be always available. Standing upon the bridge, staring out at the rapid disintegration into chaos playing out before him, Kylo Ren again said the only thing that made any sense.

“ _Summon the general_.”

The bridge technician sitting nearest him, curled in upon himself in an unhappy tangle of arms, winced; whether it was from his tone of voice or the distant explosion of a TIE fighter, Ren didn’t care enough to know. “I—we have tried. Several times.”

Though he raised an eyebrow, it could not be seen behind the mask; from the terrified expression on the technician’s face, he might have raised his lightsaber instead. “Is it really so very difficult?”

“He’s – sir, he’s not _answering_ , I don’t know why—”

The man was babbling. He also thought he was about to die. Dismissing him as useless, Ren cast a long gaze over the rest of the bridge. It yielded no better result. Despite being more than competent in their own occupations – Hux would not have procured the services of anyone less – they still looked to their most senior officer for full cohesive command.

But despite his unique place in the command hierarchy, active engagements of this sort were not what he had trained for. Kylo Ren set his jaw, eyes moving rapidly between the swarm of fighters engaged in active combat far too close to the _Finalizer_ , and reviewed his options.

It would be simple enough to turn his mind to the man, to blast his presence into Hux’s very mind and demand his attendance upon the bridge effective immediately. Reluctance stayed his hand, though it twitched at his side, just moments away from forming a full fist. It simply was not a _kind_ manoeuvre. And while _that_ hardly bothered him, he did not wish to impair the general’s abilities during an unexpected firefight.

It would also be a lot more personally satisfying to storm in there and pick him up by his scrawny little neck.

Ren hardly realised he had left the bridge in a swirl of black and silver. Long strides led him swift through the corridors, heedless of the personnel who moved in the opposite direction. Aside from that particular migration, there was otherwise no indication of the chaos outside; their shields held, and no resistance fighter had yet been foolhardy enough to come within accurate range of the Finalizer’s weapons array. They _could_ fire upon them from the Destroyer, he supposed – but Ren simply wasn’t familiar enough with the artillery to know if it was worthwhile to do so, or if it would be more advisable to allow the smaller and more manoeuvrable TIE fighters to pick them off more cleanly.

He despised feeling this way. But this was _Hux’s_ ship. _He_ was the one not doing his job.

The door to his quarters was of course locked. Ren turned his gaze – and his will – upon it for a scarce moment. The door popped open with unhappy surprise. He had little care for the crushed ruins of the locking mechanism as he swept past and inside. The man’s presence could be felt all around him, boiling under his skin like chronic infection. But Hux was not in the outer rooms, and without hesitation Ren moved into the bedroom. Neat and orderly, it seemed little more than an extension of the man himself; like a shadow of his presence, a freshly pressed uniform had been laid neatly upon the bed.

As Ren opened his mouth to bellow his name, the ‘fresher door slid open, a figure walking out. Ren turned, and his mouth stayed open, though no sound emerged.

General Hux stood in the doorframe, still and staring. He was also stark bollock naked. Long-fingered hands had paused in the act of rubbing a towel over damp hair. As Ren watched, they descended in slow arc, pale brow furrowing, lips pressed to a thin line.

And then he shook his head, wrapping the towel around narrow hips; when he spoke, it was with clear annoyance. “What are you doing in here?”

The vocoder very kindly masked the slight tremor of his words. “Why aren’t _you_ on the bridge?”

“Clearly, I am not on active duty.” A hand rose, flicked one of the durasteel ID tags hung about his throat, fell away. Hux did not even appear aware he had made the motion. “What are you doing in here?”

It could be little else but strange that Hux, who Ren had never seen anything short of perfectly attired, showed so little discomfort at being caught out in such a state. Ordinarily Ren would have been able to brush against the surface of his mind, gathering some clue as to why that might be. But given that his own mindspace had devolved into little more than a cacophonous roar, Ren found himself unable to process even his own catastrophic thoughts.

“You are needed on the bridge,” he said, eventually, near-painfully. Blowing out an impatient breath, Hux pushed his fingers back through his hair, lips twisted and downturned.

“Don’t I have subordinates for that?” His eyes flicked to the still-open door, then back to Ren himself. “Why aren’t _you_ up there?”

A most perfectly-timed roar of energy answered; the ship _shuddered_ , but held a steady pitch. Hux spun on one bare heel, eyes narrowed and expression the dark clouds before the break of full furious storm. “What was that?”

Ren blinked, just once. “Unexpected Resistance volley.”

“I – _what_? Why aren’t you on the bridge sorting this out?” The quick military clip of the general’s words awaited no response. “Oh, I see. It’s not within your particular wizardly purview, I suppose?”

And Ren did not bother with an answer. He might have had one, had he not been held motionless by the strange sight before him.

“Kark it,” he muttered, slicking one hand back through his damp hair. The water had rendered the bright colour somewhat darker. Yet when he turned his head to marshal his forces, it caught the light, blazed near-golden. Ren’s mouth felt very dry. The burning shame of it was not alleviated by the faint fear that Hux might notice, for all he had never sensed an iota of Force-sensitivity from the man in the entire time they had known one another.

Gliding back into the outer room, graceful and silent as a felinx on his bare feet, Hux braced his hands about the console there and leaned forward before its array of screens. Behind him, the curve of his rear pressed lean and strong against the white fabric of the towel. Having trailed him back, Ren now stood very still. He could not even avert move his eyes, breath tangled in his throat, half-choking him. Hux paid not the slightest attention. Already skipping through channels, bringing up multiple screens, he began to curse lightly under his breath.

“Amateurs,” he muttered, just under his breath. Then his voice rose – _the_ voice, the one that made grown men cry and tremble and throw themselves in front of blaster fire to die under his command – and the heel of one palm slammed down to open the comms. “This is General Hux, calling the bridge. Await my command.”

The immediate relief in the sound-off of all lead staff saturated the very air itself. Ren could not blame them; if there was one thing even Ren would not name the general, it was _amateur_.

And he himself could not be entirely sure what the general had chosen to do. Despite Anakin Skywalker’s prowess with any vessel that might require a pilot, Ren had always been afraid any skill he himself might have instead came from his father. He could pilot a ship, if necessary; he would even emerge victorious from a straightforward dogfight in the unlikely event he found himself part of one.

But he could not do as the general did now: multiple screens demonstrated the sortie from even more numerous angles, his eyes gleaming deep unnatural blue in the holo-light. In fact that same light rendered his face almost featureless as he became all but absorbed by his work.

Fingers skipped light over touchpads, screens; data scrolled past at a speed dizzying even to Ren, the man holding ten conversations simultaneously and not missing a beat in one. And yet he appeared under no strain whatsoever. This was a strange song with no music, only a driving military beat. And Hux conducted it from its very centre, a fine white spider with blazing hair and only two hands, though his web stretched far beyond the mortal eye and into every corner of the known universe.

The Resistance landed no second strike to the ship; apparently it had been little more than a fluke it had happened even once. It likely did not escape his awareness that the Resistance had always been clever with such guerrilla tactics. Still, it sent a red-hot flash of fury through Ren, and he could not help but wonder if it was but a tap into what the general was surely projecting. Ren would have been furious to the point of wanton destruction, had he loved the ship even a quarter as much as the general appeared to. For all its size, it was a child to him. One hand lay upon the console even now, very still, as if soothing the great damn thing.

And still he stood at the heart of it all, a wiry lean thing in nothing else but a towel and the ball chain hung at the hollow of his throat. He should look the fool. He should look vulnerable and unprofessional and utterly inappropriate.

_He is beautiful_.

Hux took the day in an easy victory – too easy, perhaps. The moment it became an organised rout, the Resistance fighters had chosen to beat a hasty retreat. Perhaps they had only hoped to goad them into firing upon them, gathering observations about the firepower and capabilities of the Resurgent-class Destroyer they so likely knew little enough about. Hux had allowed none of it. Forcing them back, with some losses, the remnants made the jump to hyperspace, and were gone.

“We will not pursue,” Hux stated, cold and motionless; the light in his eyes, however, burned bright enough it could turn all to ash and stardust. “They are unlikely to lead us to any base of note; they are but scouts who chanced upon us.” And he took a scarce breath, added in even order, “Return the fighters to their hangars and await debrief; I will be on the bridge presently.”

Then he turned, the screens dying in a flickering cascade behind him. And only now did he scowl, the lines of frustration deeply etched as the volcanic canals upon a long-dead moon.

“Are you still here?”

Ren could only stare. And yet, his mind had turned oddly calm, had become the opposite of the cracked and furious kyber crystal in his lightsaber: clear and simple and strange and true.

“Ren?” The pale eyes flickered over his face, and his frown turned to puzzlement, as if he had just noticed he had taken the mask off. Ren himself could not even remember doing it. “Ren, what are you staring—”

He moved fast, serpent-strike quick. Hux took a lumbering half-step back, face etched in lines of clear surprise, but it made no difference. Ren had already gone to his knees before him, hands on the neat fold of the towel, stripping it away without so much as a word.

“ _Ren_ —”

He didn’t really have any clear idea of what he was about to do. Such behaviour was something he had really only picked up from the minds of others, often when vaguely cruising the mind-roads of the massive ship while in meditation, deep in the night-cycle. He’d never known any true yearning for it himself. There had been little more than childish fumblings, in the dark, long ago. Snoke had never discouraged it, but neither had he encouraged such explorations. Ren himself had simply never thought too hard on the subject, content in his path to the Dark through the medium of his own body alone.

Ren carefully laid his opened hands upon between the strong thighs, found them dusted with light golden hair; it brushed soft over the calluses of finger and palm. The hair between Hux’s legs grew thicker, darker than that even that upon his head. One hand angled, slid forward, the fingertips lightly brushing against his cock. Ren found it velvet-soft, warmer than expected; when he brushed it again it gave a strong twitch. Above him, still as a trooper called to attention, Hux swallowed back a low groan.

“Ren, _stop_.”

He leaned forward from the waist. A long lick, from the rounded head to the root, and he found himself inexplicably smiling; the tickle of hair ghosted over his skin like trailing kisses. But Ren sat back upon his heels, glanced up from beneath dark eyelashes. Hux stared back, utterly silent save for his breathing. It caught in his throat, hitched and harsh; the pulse in his throat was rabbit-quick, a low flush rising on pale skin. With a frown, Ren nudged his mind, sought feedback from within. There he found confusion, bewilderment, irritation, simmering edge of fury – ah, there. Interest. Pleasure. _Desire_.

Ren engulfed the cock entire in his wide-opened mouth. From that moment he learned it was an act requiring considerably more finesse, but then his grasp of the Force kept him from choking outright. From above he sensed a faint hint of alarm at the thought of teeth so close; hooding his lips over them, Ren smothered a chuckle, and continued. It seemed Hux enjoyed the flat of his tongue pressed up, hard along the underside of his cock. And it hardened in his mouth, strange and growing with every moment. Pulling off, saliva rolling down his chin and a faint taste of salt upon his lips, Ren turned a quizzical look upward.

He could have simply kept rooting around Hux’s mind for the answers he wanted. But he found he wanted to hear it from the man’s mouth, in his own voice.

_And it’s such a lovely voice._

To his credit, there was but the faintest tremor to the words he managed. “What are you _doing_ here?”

It was the third time he had asked, and still Ren had no intention of answering. The general was a gifted man. He would figure it out for himself. Ren instead fitted his lips about the head, one hand coming about the shaft. It was almost too easy to fit the motion to what Hux’s mind screamed for, delving into the rhythm that made even his orderly mind fray at the harsh seams stitched there.

Slipping his tongue over the slit, he engaged in an experimental slide of the tip within. A groan rattled from deep inside, and then Hux bent over from the waist, abdomen tight and taut, chest hollowed with shallow breath, hands coming up to tangle in Ren’s hair. He found it almost immediately uncomfortable; Hux pulled too tight, tugging at his scalp. But Ren did not discourage him. Rather, he raised one hand of his own, carefully cradled his balls, and rolled them gently in a warm palm.

A keening sound escaped him; desperate humiliation radiated from Hux like a burning corona. Ren only smiled, engulfed him again. Suckling, pulling back, sliding forward; with every shift of his tongue inside his mouth, he allowed the faintest hint of teeth. When he hollowed his cheeks, one long finger moved to stroke the sensitive skin between behind his balls. At his feet, on his knees, Ren could feel the tremor of the great general before and above him, fighting for silence and losing with every gasping breath in. The man could not get enough oxygen. But still he fought on.

General Hux would go down with his ship. And Ren wanted to see him do it.

The beauty of him, alive in his warcraft, had called to him in the manner of a relentless summons. His own arousal, ignored, twitched in his trousers. Resisting the urge to wrap a hand about his cock came easy; he’d never had little patience for it.

Instead Ren focused alone on the man before him. The beauty and the bestiality of him were perfect dichotomy; how such a monster could lurk beneath such an innocuous façade Ren could never understand. And his own cock began to heat further, dripping in his trousers, as he considered it: General Hux with sword in hand upon a battleground strewn with the fallen, covered in blood and filth, bright eyes too blue and too calm, an emperor in no need of a throne because he carried it with him it wherever he went.

Hux came hard and without apparent warning. Even with his mind absently wired to Hux’s own, Ren had not been prepared for the flood of it into his mouth; drawing back, choking, swallowing, choking again, it finally bubbled out from between his lips. Wiping at his aching lips with the harsh leather of his gloves, Ren glanced up, faintly blinded by the watering of his eyes. Hux, eyes clouded, one hand white-knuckled upon the console, was barely standing.

“And here I thought that between us I’d be the one who choked first.”

Ren’s own voice had turned hoarse, croaking, and he did not even make anything approaching real words. Hux still stared. The vague set of his thoughts all but screamed their way into Ren’s own mind: _it wasn’t bad_ shifted to _I wouldn’t have thought he’d know but he seemed to be_ becomes _wait was he **reading my mind** that little—_

“What _was_ that?”

Ren did not rise, did not speak. He also did not put anything into his mind. He watched instead the understanding bloom across his face with the violence of a planetary implosion.

“…I never would have pegged _you_ as someone with a competency fetish, Kylo.”

The name sent a shudder jolting through him, just under his skin; it felt too tight, too warm. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than to strip himself naked, pressing against the man until his aching cock found relief.

The man was no mind reader. Ren could see Hux knew what he wanted all the same. “I thought I was needed on the bridge,” he observed, voice turned sly, arms folding across his chest. Ren snorted, shifted, felt the hardness of his cock against one thigh.

“I thought you were on downtime.”

“I’m not the one on my knees.”

And now he was standing, swaying, still towering over him. Even with but two inches between them, Hux remained barefoot and Ren in full battle attire.

“I don’t have to be,” he rasped, and Hux actually _laughed_ , the sound oddly youthful, genuinely amused.

“But I like you there.” His head jerked sideways, towards the bedroom; the motion set loose a bead of seat. Ren watched it course down the lean line of his throat, pooling at his collarbone. “Come, then. And shut the door behind you, this time.”

Raising his eyes, he allowed himself a smile of his own, not caring if it seemed unkind. Hux would care no more than he did. “Of course.” And, recalling the vague trailing thought of Hux’s promised debrief, he added, “It won’t take long.”

“Oh, _Ren_.” The light in his eyes had turned feral, predatory. “We’ll take as long as I want.”

He should be insulted. He should say something. But Ren only remembered him at the centre of his command, and followed him in without another word.

Hux did make it to the bridge. Exactly at the start of his next shift, a full quarter-cycle later. A general had his duties. But then there would always be his downtime, too.

Ren never let him forget it.

**Author's Note:**

> [THERE IS AMAZING FANART FOR THIS OKAY I ADORE IT](https://valveillen.tumblr.com/post/152082526907/as-ren-opened-his-mouth-to-bellow-his-name-the).


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